Christie aids seniors

Governor Christie has done an about-face and cancelled plans to increase prescription drug fees for low-income senior citizens and disabled citizens. The nearly 134,000 residents enrolled in the Pharmaceutical Assistance to the Aged and Disabled and Senior Gold programs won't see their prescription copayments rise and won't have to pay a suggested $310 deductible.

As we've said before, there are some vulnerable citizens who cannot be asked to survive with less help. This group is among them. Christie's reversal is the right move.

The plan would have lowered copayments for generic drugs from $6 to $5, but increased them for brand-name prescriptions from $7 to $15. These fees could have put drugs out of reach, especially for PAAD enrollees, who can earn up to $29,956 for a couple. For Senior Gold, a couple's income threshold is $39,956.

The new plan sensibly retains the lowered $5 fee for generics, a clear incentive to switch to cheaper drugs, which Christie estimates will save the state $10.4 million next year. But in holding copayments for brand-name prescriptions at $7, it doesn't punish patients for whom no medically appropriate generic alternative exists, which the AARP estimates at 40 percent.

Good. These citizens don't just have low incomes, they have low fixed incomes. We should not force seniors to choose between buying medicine or food.

Balancing a budget requires nuance, patience and an open mind — not the first three qualities associated with our brash new governor or often tax-happy Legislature. That's what makes this reversal especially encouraging. The money was found, the program restored, and some of our neediest citizens taken care of — without more taxes. Christie said he cobbled together the needed $55.5 million from generics savings, $13 million in manufacturers' rebates and $22.8 million in federal Medicare funds. The new federal health care law helped too, by closing a Medicare loophole to net New Jersey a projected $9.3 million.

We'll need to see more sophisticated parsing in the future, given the dire income-tax collection estimates reported last week — an estimated $550 million less than projected. So far, the conversation has largely centered on the millionaires tax, which the Legislature passed, as promised, and Christie vetoed, as promised, last week.

Politically speaking, the millionaires tax looks like a non-starter. Let's move on and find cuts and revenues everyone can live with.

We call on the Christie administration to take a closer look at the few other programs we strongly believe cannot be cut. State aid to libraries is a mere $11 million. Aid for family planning programs is just $7.5 million. Already, legislators have suggested ways to shuffle other health dollars to fund these clinics.

Some creative thinking had Trenton humming a different tune last week — at least for a day.